Loretta LaRoche: Just eat, drink and be merry

Monday

Oct 29, 2007 at 12:01 AMOct 29, 2007 at 4:25 AM

Forget enjoyment; that's passé. The food police are now a part of our daily existence. Everything is either good or bad for you. And that can change from moment to moment each time a new bit of research is unveiled.

Loretta LaRoche

Years ago, I read a book called "Mommilies" that was filled with phrases we've all heard our moms say over and over to get us to listen.

My mother's favorites were always about food. Phrases such as:

"Eat your carrots so you can see better."

"Have your spinach otherwise you'll be a weakling.”

"Drink your milk so your bones won't break."

I'm sure these messages and others have been handed down through the generations.

My favorite phrase was "Clean your plate. People in China are
starving."

It was loaded with guilt, and it always worked. Who wants to be responsible for millions of Chinese starving to death? I certainly didn't, so I ate everything, leaving my plate spotless.

That was then, and nowadays we don't hear those rather naive messages. I wish we did because they've been replaced with never-ending rhetoric filled with warnings and research about food. You cannot eat one thing without someone popping up with a comment about what you're ingesting.

It doesn't matter what you’re eating or who you’re with. Today, everyone has a need to spout the latest science on some food group.

Forget enjoyment; that's passé. The food police are now a part of our daily existence. Everything is either good or bad for you. And that can change from moment to moment each time a new bit of research is unveiled.

Grapes may triple your life span this week, but next week they might be the end of you.

Several years ago, oatmeal became the grain of choice, being touted as the answer for everything from lowering cholesterol to curing warts. It was soon added to numerous products. If it can lower blood lipids, why not put it in shampoo? Maybe it can make hair grow.

Well, oatmeal, like so many other American obsessions, has lost its luster and has now been replaced with blueberries, raspberries, mushrooms, broccoli and salmon.

If you're not eating salmon, you better turn yourself in because you'll soon be arrested and made to swim upstream for eternity.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of having someone giving me a scientific lecture every time I eat. I think you have to be living under a rock not to know that a pile of pork rinds and fries topped with a huge banana split on a regular basis is the death knell of your arteries.

Surely, we must also know that fruits, vegetables, grains and small amounts of protein are better. We hear it week after week on TV and see it in print.

Let's take a sabbatical from discussing everything we're eating as if we're in a laboratory and start savoring our food and delighting in the people we're eating it with.